OPENING DAY
My brother and nephew went to Opening Day in D.C.
ROSTER RESOURCE
Music to catalog the Opening Day surprises by.
Sam Hilliard has no at-bats and already a stolen base. He looked fast swiping a base after coming in as a defensive replacement for Marcel Ozuna. And he is fast, he had an 87th percentile sprint speed last year. I’ve projected him for 174 at-bats and 5 steals. At his current pace, he’ll have no at-bats and 162 steals at the season’s end.
It appears that in San Francisco, Blake Sabol and David Villar will platoon in left field, LaMonte Wade and JD Davis will platoon at first, and Brett Wisely and Matt Beaty, both lefties, will serve respectively as a defensive replacement and pinch hitter primarily. That’s not a changeup, just clarification.
From the look of it, I have perhaps underestimated Aaron Judge.
Jorge Mateo looked great in the Orioles game with the Red Sox. He stole two bases, hit the ball smartly, and apparently did a lot of work over the winter to improve his hitting, according to the announcers. The Orioles general manager, Mike Elias, credited a lot of the staff’s success last year to the solid defense of Mateo and Gold Glove winner last year, Ramon Urias. If Mateo holds the job all year I made a mistake not freezing him.
Miles Mastrobuoni was not on my radar this winter. The Cubs traded for him last fall and apparently want to take advantage of his defensive flexibility. He also hit 16 homers and stole 23 bases in Durham while with the Rays, putting up a .300 batting average. He spent a lot of time coming up through the minors and this year is that magic age, when the nexus of wisdom and physical skills peaks simultaneously. (Psst, I wouldn’t make too serious a thing of that, but it does seem to matter.)
Zach McKinstry was a Tigers pickup this week via a trade with the Cubs. On Opening Day he pinch-hit for Matt Vierling, who doesn’t do much against righties. McKinstry, in his brief major league career, hasn’t done much against righties either, and he ground out against Jason Adam yesterday. McKinstry’s profile is shallow and interesting because he made enough contact last year to hit at a .250 clip, but his xBA was only .206. With the strong side of the platoon perhaps available, and with his good speed and defense, he could be a bit of a breakthrough candidate despite the career .208 batting average and .651 OPS. In AL-only leagues only.
No real fantasy implications here, but Bubba Thompson came into the Rangers game and moved Adolis Garcia from center field to left field. Garcia’s defensive skills would seem to be superior to Bubba’s or maybe Thompson has improved enough that his superior speed makes him better in center. If it gets the speedster more offensive opportunities it could up his fantasy value until Leody Taveras returns, which isn’t supposed to be too far away.
You might have seen this in the highlights. The Royals brought MJ Melendez in from right field to short-right against Joey Gallo early in the game, a legal shift that appeared to be brilliant when Gallo hopped one right to Melendez. Alas, Melendez booted it and Gallo landed on first on an error.
The Mets had Tommy Pham pinch-hit for Dan Vogelbach leading off the 7th against lefty Tanner Scott in a tied game. Pham grounded out but the Mets went on and scored two that inning.
Ji Hwan Bae is fast, we knew that, but we thought he would be platooning with Rodolfo Castro at second base for the Pirates. Yesterday, when Castro came in Bae moved to center field and Canaan Smith-Njigba came out of the game. Bae stole two bases and if plays more full-time than part-time he’ll be an impact player.
Very similar to Miles Mastrobuoni, above, Nathan Lukes flew under the radar this spring. Or at least my radar. Another former Rays prospect, he hit 11 homers playing for the Jays in Triple-A last summer and stole 20 bases, walking nearly 10 percent of the time. He can play centerfield, though he’s blocked there by Kevin Kiermaier. In a packed lineup, there may not be many at-bats for him.
With Jordan Walker in the lineup for St. Louis, Dylan Carlson rode the pine. He appears to be platooning with Nolan Gorman, doing neither of their chances for a fantasy breakout any good.
Rony Gonzalez started in right field for the White Sox against the lefty and Oscar Colas came in after the pitching change. They each singled in two at-bats and bring a 1.000 OPS into Day 2.
Yainer Diaz was not a surprise DH on Opening Day for the Astros, but the fact that he batted 6th has to count as a little surprise. The Astros believe in him. He’s a contact hitter who hit 25 minor league homers last year, not a bad No. 2 catcher in AL-only.
So far, no starts for Mike Moustakas on the Rockies. Elehuris Montero didn’t hurt himself by homering, and when it was time for a defensive replacement in came Alan Trejo.
Presumably David Dahl, who started yesterday for the Padres, and Jose Azocar will platoon until April 20th, when Fernando Tatis Jr. returns from his suspension.
The Athletics couldn’t touch Shohei Ohtani, but the Angels were only slightly better against Kyle Muller. And the Athletics did touch the Angels’ pen. Their lineup is a whole newsletter worth of chatter about roles for guys who would be backups on most other teams. The A’s first steal of the year goes to Seth Brown, not Esteury Ruiz.
It wasn’t surprising that Josh Outman started in center field for the Dodgers, they were facing a rightie, but Outman’s numbers versus lefties in Triple-A last year weren’t hopeless. His homer off Cole Sulser was very impressively struck.
THE WEEKEND
I’m drafting my AL-only American Dream League team this Sunday, by Zoom. Nobody wanted that, but with a number of teams based well out of town, the desire to book travel only to have to cancel if someone got sick was not there.
The ADL is my last draft/auction of the season. I’m playing in the Baseball 365 15-team mixed draft and hold, the Great Fantasy Baseball 15-team mixed tournament, the XFL 15-team kinda-dynasty league, Tout Wars NL-only, the Marshall League 12 team mixed, with odd roster and auction rules, and the ADL AL-only.
I’ll be answering questions and may post some updates over the next couple of weeks. Please send away.
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